Free Republic

(11-19) 16:21 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- The fireplace police descended on the Bay Area on Wednesday. For the first time ever, residential fires are illegal under a new law, passed in July, that bans home burning on winter season Spare the Air days. The first such ban took effect at noon. Seventy inspectors from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District planned to spend the day and evening patrolling residential neighborhoods, looking for telltale chimney wisps. Violators will get warnings by mail. Repeat offenders face fines of as much as $2,000. The fireplace police say they are determined to keep...

A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges. The prosecution victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting...

First day back at work for the ‘Cuda, and it wasn’t uneventful. I’m giving you two versions, the nitty gritty 90-second hit from CNN and the extended director’s cut from MSNBC. No names are named, but the hint she drops about the NAFTA smear probably having come from one of her debate preppers is as heavy as a barbell. Who was in charge of prepping her? Among others, according to Fox News: Randy Scheunemann, her chief defender, as well as … Steve Schmidt and Mark Wallace, husband of Nicolle. Hmmmm.

House Democrats are bypassing renewal of the offshore oil drilling ban by including the entire Pelosi “drill nothing” energy bill in a draft of a Continuing Resolution. HUMAN EVENTS obtained a copy of the most recent House draft CR this morning. The Pelosi bill, HR 6899, fails to open more than a miniscule part of the available offshore drilling areas and -- even worse -- it establishes permanent bans on development of most other domestic energy sources (natural gas, oil shale, etc.) and does nothing to develop nuclear power. It passed the House earlier this month and is now languishing...

The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update finds John McCain continuing to lead Barack Obama, 48% to 43% among registered voters.

Family Of Subway Robbery Suspect Says Customer Shouldn't Have Pulled Trigger POSTED: 10:30 am EDT June 29, 2007 PLANTATION, Fla. -- The family of one of the men who was shot by a retired United States Marine while they attempted to rob a Subway sandwich shop said the customer shouldn't have pulled the trigger. According to Plantation police, two armed men barged into the Subway at 1949 Pine Island Road shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday, demanding money...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Senate candidate Al Franken says he will pay about $70,000 in back income taxes in 17 states going back to 2003. The Minnesota Democrat has been under attack by Republicans for failing to file tax returns in California for several years when the comedian-turned-candidate earned money there. Franken tells The Associated Press he never intended to avoid paying taxes. He says during the years in question, he paid his entire income tax bill to the city and state where he lived. Franken says he did this on the advice of his accountant, but that he...

Franken owes $70,000 in back taxes in 17 states By PATRICIA LOPEZ, Star Tribune April 29, 2008 DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, frontrunner in the race to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, owes $70,000 in back taxes in 17 states, where he earned income going back to 2003. Franken on Tuesday told the Associated Press that he never intended to avoid paying taxes and that on the advice of his accountant, had paid taxes to the city and state where he lived. Franken has been under fire since early March, when a Republican operative revealed that Franken had...

By Michelle Malkin April 28, 2008 Heard E.D. Hill mention this earlier today. It’s been confirmed: Jeremiah Wright’s bodyguards are Nation of Islam goons. Several Farrakhan acolytes were also in the audience for Wright’s vaudeville performance at the National Press Club, including one of our favorite race clowns, Malik Zulu Shabazz, and America’s favorite race clown politician, Marion Barry. Also in attendance: Wacknut Obama supporter Rev. Michael Pfleger: Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the...

DENVER - A Colorado legislator known for kicking a photographer was ordered to leave the podium of the state House of Representatives on Monday because he called Mexican workers "illiterate peasants." State Rep. Douglas Bruce, who has a history of provoking controversy, made the comment during debate on a bill that would allow the state to help immigrant workers get temporary federal visas. The measure is intended to ease a shortage of farm workers in the state. "I would like to have the opportunity to state at the microphone why I don't think we need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in...

<p>Last summer, in Detroit’s St. Paul Church of God in Christ, I watched Bill Cosby summon his inner Malcolm X. It was a hot July evening. Cosby was speaking to an audience of black men dressed in everything from Enyce T-shirts or polos to blazers and ties...</p>

Clinton scores a Hat Trick TRIBUNE-REVIEW BY: Salena Zito When it rains it pours, and Thursday it rained superdelegates for Hillary Clinton. Clinton scored a Hat Trick Thursday by picking up former Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff, former president of the Ohio chapter of the AFL-CIO Bill Burga and Jackie Speier, who took over the late Tom Santo's seat in Congress this week.

Pirates seized control of a French vessel carrying 30 crew members Friday off the coast of Somalia, the French government and the ship's owner said. Attackers stormed aboard "Le Ponant" as it returned without passengers from the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, toward the Mediterranean Sea, said officials with French maritime transport company CMA-CGM. The corporate officials said they were in close contact with the French Foreign Ministry, which said in a statement that a cruise boat and its crew had been attacked by pirates. The ship was in the high seas in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast...

Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned Tuesday that Social Security and Medicare are facing "enormous challenges" with the threat to Medicare's solvency far more severe. ADVERTISEMENT The trustees, issuing a once-a-year analysis of the government's two biggest benefit programs, said the resources in the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019. Both those dates were the same as in last year's report. But the trustees warned that financial pressures will begin much sooner when the programs...

It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator It's not quite eight in the morning and Barack Obama is on the phone screaming at me. He liked the story I wrote about him a couple weeks ago, but not this garbage. Months earlier, a reporter friend told me she overheard Obama call me an asshole at a political fund-raiser. Now here he is blasting me from hundreds of miles away for a story that just went online but hasn't yet hit local newsstands. It's the first time I...

In a recent WND column, Janet Folger begs social conservatives to vote for John McCain. She believes McCain will rescue "most everyone" from our political "burning building" – when in fact McCain has already locked arms with the Kennedys, Feingolds and liberal Democrats to keep social conservatives "out" of politics while they burn our constitutional republic to the ground. Like our mutual friend Alan Keyes, I've been a lifelong Republican and never voted third party, but this time I've had enough

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=53014

The IRS is investigating the United Church of Christ over a speech Sen. Barack Obama gave at its national meeting last year after he became a candidate for president, the denomination said Tuesday. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, belongs to the 1.2 million-member Protestant group through his Chicago congregation. In a letter the denomination received Monday, the IRS said "reasonable belief exists" that the circumstances surrounding the speech violated restrictions on political activity for tax-exempt organizations. The denomination has denied any wrongdoing. United Church of Christ, link to IRS letter: http://www.ucc.org/news/obama-speech-in-2007-prompts-1.html

John McCain is a well-known opponent of waterboarding. But he wants President Bush to veto a measure that would bar the CIA from using it, and other harsh interrogation methods, on terror suspects. McCain voted against the bill, which would let the CIA use only the 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual. His vote is controversial because the manual prohibits waterboarding, yet McCain doesn't want the CIA to be bound by the manual and its prohibitions.

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said President Bush should veto a measure that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects. McCain voted against the bill, which would restrict the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual. His vote was controversial because the manual prohibits waterboarding - a simulated drowning technique that McCain also opposes - yet McCain doesn't want the CIA bound by the manual and its prohibitions. McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, is...